Jesse Lund, head of blockchain solutions at IBM, has just hinted that the tech company has plans to explore stablecoins in an interview with Cheddar yesterday. Lund did not disclose when this venture may debut but said it would be on its World-Wire platform.

IBM and Stablecoins

IBM began its venture with Stellar in late-2017 and finalized most of its plans in mid-2018. Stellar is an open-sourced, decentralized protocol that focuses on transfers between fiat currency and digital currency.

Lund told Cheddar that US banks are “very interested” in using stablecoins to send cross-border ...

The cryptocurrency market is making a comeback this week, after closing out last week in the red. Crypto news was pretty slow last week, but it has picked up a bit today. This morning, CoinCenter released news that the SEC Chairman confirmed that ETH is not ruled as a security by the regulator. In addition to this big news, Binance announced it has added XRP and credit card payment support to its Trust Wallet app.

In today’s edition of crypto news, we’ll cover OKEX’s latest addition to its customer-to-customer platform and IBM’s new blockchain patents. Crypto news has been a bit slow this week, in regards to big announcements but the two we’ll discuss today should give investors some confidence going into the weekend.

OKEx Adds TRON (TRX) to C2C Platform

OKEx, the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by 24-hour trade volume, announced the addition of TRON (TRX) to its Customer-to-Customer platform on Wednesday.

Tron (TRX) is now available on our C2C market! Deposit/Trade in our C2C market now to ...

US prosecutors have arrested one leader of the OneCoin project for stealing billions from investors through the alleged pyramid scheme.

Ruja Ignatova and Konstantin Ignatov have been indicted by the State of New York for wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. Ignatov was arrested this week, however, Ignatova remains at large.

The pair defrauded investors out of “billions of dollars” using fake cryptocurrency.

OneCoin

Prosecutors are calling the OneCoin project a pyramid scheme whereby members work on a commissions basis and try to recruit other members to the project. Each of ...

Earlier in the year, Fidelity Investments launched its arm dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Called Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS), the branch trades in and takes custody of digital assets. Now, according to FDAS President Tom Jessop, the platform will take its time adding support for Ethereum.

Fidelity Digital Assets

The platform currently has support for Bitcoin and is still evaluating what cryptocurrencies may be added in the future.

Where Ethereum is concerned, the executive has expressed that the company is biding time:

Hong Kong Blockchain Week is underway and on March 7th, Hybrid Summit 2019 made its debut at HKBW. The blockchain-centered educational event held speakers from all over the world, including IOHK Founder and CEO Charles Hoskinson. Among the many presentations made, the uBUCK presentation, in particular, has gained buzz from the event – according to speaker Jon Malach, uBUCK is offering a new and convenient approach to crypto Mastercards and stablecoin wallets.

Crypto news has been fairly slow this week, minus a few major announcements. Huobi Global just announced support for XRP. Another piece of news that should excite investors is IBM releasing its new X-Force Red.

There have been Facebook coin rumors for months in the crypto community and today, the New York Times stirred them up again. According to the New York Times report, Facebook is currently working on its own digital currency to integrate into its messaging services.

Facebook Coin Rumors

A few months ago, Bloomberg released an article about Facebook developing its own stablecoin to be used on its WhatsApp messaging app. This was the start of the rumor mill, although many have discussed in the past the potential of the advertising giant adopting a digital currency.

According to a document published on the Russian President’s official website, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian Government to adopt cryptocurrency regulations by July 1st this year. The move will help Russia crypto adoption.

Setting the deadline, the Russian President has ordered the body to enforce crypto-related regulation for the digital assets industry.

Russia Crypto Adoption

The transcript reads the following:

“Federal laws aimed at the development of the digital economy, including determining the procedure for conducting civil law transactions in electronic form, as well as regulating digital financial assets and attracting ...

It says a lot for cryptocurrency everywhere that one of the biggest phone brands in the world has added support for digital assets in its latest release. Samsung’s new Galaxy S10 series has done just that, with a built-in wallet function for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and two other altcoins.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Supports Crypto

A Samsung official unveiled the phone’s new features at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain yesterday.

The phone has been created with “various crypto and blockchain related projects” as standard on the device. It presented COSMEE, a blockchain-based beauty social ...

Less than 24 hours ago, Samsung Mobile announced the release of its next-generation Galaxy smartphone. The new Samsung Galaxy S10 is beautifully designed, and it includes a new feature that many crypto enthusiasts might appreciate.

The cryptocurrency market had quite the shakeup last week, causing a spike in most digital currencies. On Valentine’s Day, six days ago, JP Morgan announced that it would launch a test for its new JPM coin. This was the biggest crypto news to surface in quite some time. Now, digital currencies seem to have corrected, and most are trading red today.

A cryptocurrency bull run has taken hold of the entire crypto market. Digital coins have been rallying back (and then some) in recent days.

The gains continue today as, according to CoinMarketCap, all the top 20 coins stay in the green.

Cryptocurrency Bull Run

At the time of writing, Bitcoin—the largest coin by market cap—is valued at $3,982, up 1.8% on the day. Today’s gains continue a bull run that has seen Bitcoin pack on roughly 9% in the last seven days. Now, BTC looks set to test the new price point of $4,000 ...

Canada’s largest crypto exchange Coinsquare has acquired the StellarX DEX according to a press release published yesterday.

Under the terms of the agreement, StellarX will become a fully-owned subsidiary of Coinsquare and will now need regulatory approval to operate its service under the Coinsquare umbrella.

Coinsquare Acquires StellarX

Based in Bermuda, StellarX describes itself as “the first decentralized crypto platform with global fiat gateways. You can trade Bitcoin for Euros for Chinese Yuan on StellarX. That’s not possible anywhere else.”

Developed as an on-ramp for traders, customers have the ability to deposit ...

As of yesterday, users using a Coinbase Wallet can now back up an encrypted version of their private keys to their personal cloud storage account. These accounts include either iCloud or Google Drive. Coinbase released this announcement via its personal blog yesterday.

Hong Kong blockchain week is right around the corner! Hybrid Summit has decided to host its annual event in China this year. Last year, the blockchain-centered educational event was held in Bangkok Thailand and in 2017, it was held in Studio City, Macau. Hybrid Summit 2019 will be held on March 7th at the AsiaWorld Expo.

Hybrid Summit 2019

Hong Kong blockchain week will kick off on March 4th and will conclude on the 8th. The week starts off with a sunset cocktail hour for VIP ticket holders only. On the 7th, the Hybrid Summit event ...

According to Bloomberg, renowned digital asset firm Morgan Creek Digital has successfully closed a new $40 million blockchain-specific venture capital fund. It has done this because of major contributions from two US public pensions.

Backed by finance behemoth Morgan Creek Capital, Morgan Creek Digital is a hedge fund. The new venture—called the Morgan Creek Blockchain Opportunities Fund—has been created specifically for investment into the digital asset space.

Pension Plans

The two pension plans are based in Virginia. They are ‘anchor investors’ in the ...

One of the Philippines largest banks, Union Bank, is set to launch the first two-way crypto ATMs in the country.

Union Bank Crypto ATMs

Customers will be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies for cash through the ATM. The idea is to provide an easy and accessible means for crypto to fiat conversion and vice versa. The move may help to spur on adoption for the digital asset.

Union Bank said the following on the crypto ATMs:

“In the bank’s continued quest to cater to the evolving needs and tastes of customers, ...